A
U.S. NIGHT FIGHTER BASE, France, Jan. 2 (AP) - The Nazis
have thrown something new into the night skies over Germany
- the weird, mysterious "foo-fighter," balls of
fire which race alongside the wings of American Beaufighters
flying intruder missions over the Reich.

U.S.
pilots have been encountering the eerie "foo-fighter"
for more than a month in their night flights. No one apparently
knows exactly what this sky weapon is.

The
balls of fire appear suddenly and accompany the planes for
miles. They appear to be radio-controlled from the ground
and manage to keep up with planes flying 300 miles an hour,
official intelligence reports disclose.

"There
are three kinds of these lights we call 'foo-fighters,'"
said Lieut. Donald Meiers, of Chicago. "One is red
balls of fire which appear off our wing tips and fly along
with us, the second is a vertical row of three balls of
fire which fly in front of us and the third is a group of
about 15 lights which appear off in the distance - like
a Christmas tree up in the air - and flicker on and off."

The
pilots of this night fighter squadron - in operation since
September, 1943 - find these fiery balls the weirdest thing
they have as yet encountered. They are convinced that the
"foo-fighter" is designed to be a psychological
weapon as well as military although it is not the nature
of the fire balls to attack planes.

"A
'foo-fighter' picked me up recently at 700 feet and chased
me 20 miles down the Rhine Valley," Lieutenant Meiers
said. "I turned to starboard and two balls of fire
turned with me. I turned to the port side and they turned
with me. We were going 260 miles an hour and the balls were
keeping right up with us."

"On
another occasion when a 'foo-fighter' picked us up, I dived
at 360 miles per hour. It kept right off our wing tips for
awhile and then zoomed into the sky."

"When
I first saw the things off my wing tips I had the horrible
thought that a German on the ground was ready to press a
button and explode them. But they don't explode or attack
us. They just seem to follow us like will-o-the-wisps."

An
Associated Press report from Paris Dec. 13 said the Germans
had thrown silvery balls into the air against day raiders.
Pilots then reported they had seen these objects, both individually
and in clusters, during forays over the Reich.

STOCKHOLM,
Aug. 12 (AP) - Mysterious spool-shaped rockets - speeding
with fiery tails - have become a common sight in Sweden,
and military officials no longer doubt that the country
is in a target area for experimentation with remotely controlled
missiles.

Since
July 1, newspapers have published reports of the flying
fireballs nearly every day.

In
the beginning many believed excited eye-witnesses had seen
nothing more ominous than meteors. However, between July
9 and July 12, military authorities received 300 reports
of the missiles and since that time added reports have poured
in daily. Fragments examined by scientists gave little in
the way of clues, except to indicate the presence of coke
and other common materials.

Authorities,
promising a communique on the results of the investigation
within a few days, have cautioned Swedish newspapers not
to publish the names of places where the ghost rockets appear,
so that the senders would not be provided with important
data. Official quarters declined to speculate on the source
of the missiles, but it was believed elsewhere that the
rockets come from some place along the Baltic coast of Germany.

Only
in a few cases is it known that the missiles actually landed
in Sweden. Military personnel have been busily dredging
a small lake in Lapland.

Military
authorities said the missiles evidently passed over Sweden
in a huge curve. Some reports indicated the objects carried
a device for self-destruction, and military experts said
some apparently had exploded in the air. The longest flight
of any of the missiles, so far as military experts could
determine, was about 600 miles, as compared with the range
of 35 to 45 miles for the first German V-2 rocket bombs.

There
is no comparison, however, with the rocket bombs. The mystery
missiles are small, and at low altitudes seem almost square.
The bottom of the object appeared to have been painted red,
eyewitnesses said. Some observed these missiles flying extremely
low.

These
reports have been substantiated by a Swedish officer, a
flier, who saw one of the rockets during a recent flight.

President
Truman will spend an 18-day vacation in New England waters,
leaving Washington tomorrow in the Presidential Yacht U.S.S.
Williamsburg headed for Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island,
and a sail along the east coast to Maine.[Page 2]

In
Europe: Projectiles Reported Over Finland

Projectiles,
reportedly similar to these recently seen over Sweden, have
been observed over Helsinki, a dispatch from the Finnish
capital disclosed.